SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This chapter focuses on two cases in which I was involved as an expert on South Asian family laws. The story of H, a divorced Gujarati Hindu male living in Britain who endured fi ve years of ordeal before fi nally getting permission for his second wife to join him in the UK (see Menski 2007 for a fi rst critical article on this case), throws serious doubts on Britain’s commitment to human rights standards and demands answers about why relevant expert evidence is not taken on board more effectively in English law. There have been other, similar cases, some possibly even more disturbing. The particular drama of H and his second wife raises troubling questions regarding whether we genuinely do not know about foreign laws, or simply do not wish to know, because adequate knowledge would counteract the hidden agenda of exclusion, deliberate disadvantaging and, in this case, even the condonation of offi cial corruption.